Nick Mosley, 18, is the first Special Olympian in the 15 years' experience of executive director Janet Smith to make a high school varsity athletic team in Hamilton County. He has a good outside shot and an indefatigable work ethic. Tonight, he starts for the St. Bernard-Elmwood Place Titans. It is senior night.

Nick Mosley. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

        Laura Mosley heard the words and felt the blood rush to her head.

        “Your son is not going to be able to achieve much in life. I certainly wouldn't expect him to be able to go to college and maybe not even be able to hold down a job.”

        That was the second of the bombs dropped on Laura and her husband, Dave, that day. Their son, Nick, was attending kindergarten at St. Clement School, St. Bernard.

        The first bomb was “your son is developmentally handicapped.” But when the psychologist said, “he is not going to be able to achieve much,” that is when Laura saw red. Somebody she didn't even know was laying out the road map for her son and saying it led nowhere.

        Laura, who was pregnant with Elizabeth at the time, didn't even make it all the way to the door leading out of the building. She sat down on the steps, and began crying. Nobody is going to tell me my son is not going to amount to anything.
       • • •

        St. Bernard coach Kent Vories motions for Nick Mosley to get in the game.

        The St. Bernard gym is half full. The Titan team is feisty, but it isn't tall and it doesn't have a lot of great shooters. It plays a lot of close games; that means only brief playing time for Nick.

        Against big, athletic, good-shooting teams — teams such as Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy — the Titans are in trouble; this night, they are trailing 82-44, 1:59 remaining.

        Nick hunkers down at the scorer's table, stretches his legs and springs from his spot as the referee signals.

        His shooting is how he made the team. He has a nice touch, isn't shy about shooting and is always able to get off a shot inside among big defenders. Last year, he was the last player cut. Coach Vories hated to have to deliver that news, but when he offered Nick a student-manager's job, Nick bear-hugged him.

        Nick is a half-step slower than most of his teammates, but that isn't what keeps him from seeing more action. He can't process information in sequence. And he's so concerned with being in the right place he sometimes doesn't let his fine basketball instincts take over. Other players on the floor counsel him about positioning. During the day, he will ask his teammate and cousin, Anthony Rose, five or six times, “What time is practice?”

        It will be Nick's job upon entering the CHCA game to block out the shooter if he misses, and go for the rebound. The ball caroms off the rim; a teammate grabs it. Nicks spins and heads up court and receives a feed from the right side. He gathers it in, goes up to shoot, gets fouled, takes his position on the line.

Nick and his teammates. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

        It's his first scoring opportunity of the regular season — later, he will tell his parents he was so nervous his legs were shaking — after having sunk a 16-footer in a preseason game.

        He spins the ball in his left hand — he's a southpaw — and lets it fly, just off the mark. His second shot looks good — the Titans bench is on its feet — but it goes in-and-out and dances on the rim for what seems like a minute, before falling away.

        Coach Vories does a right-face, snaps his fingers, grimaces, mouths a word, shoots a smile at his bench players. Clearly, he and the team wanted terribly for that shot to drop.

        Later, senior cheerleader Tiffany Stroeer explains. She first met Nick when he was in his second year at St. Bernard Elementary, and they began their Titan playing and cheering careers together when Nick made the eighth-grade team that was coached by Mr. Vories.

        “When Nick goes in the game, everything changes,” Tiffany says. “Suddenly, it doesn't matter who's scored how many points. They truly become a team at that point. When Nick has a success, we all have a success. It hits us close to our heart.”
       • • •

        The first thing Laura and Dave Mosley did after the psychologist told them their 5-year-old son wouldn't be able to achieve much in life was to sell their house in Carthage, a house they loved, so they could move into St. Bernard.

        The principal of the elementary, Maurice Delk, put them at ease and said the school could help. They were blessed by a wonderful, first-year special-ed teacher, Nancy Franz. She and Nick clicked. She got the Mosleys involved in Special Olympics.

        Nick's dream is to play for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, and the Los Angeles Lakers. He believes it can happen. He reads at the third-grade level. It frustrates him that his 7-year-old sister, Molly, reads almost as well. He knows his multiplication tables cold, can add and subtract any group of numbers.

        He takes integrated math taught by free-spirited Kathy Mears. Second bell is language arts with Mike Radtke, reserve basketball coach. The rest of his classes are special-ed taught by Martha Murphy and Theresa Auciello. Laura and Dave have always sought to put Nick in the least restrictive environment and worked closely on his individual education plan. But Nick often blazes his own way.

        “I take every chance I can get,” he says.

        Nick knows he's “different,” would rather be in the “smart” classes, doesn't feel he belongs in special-ed. But he's joyful, outgoing, striving. It was Nick who told his parents he was going out for the varsity. (“It's my dream,” he told them. “I can play Special Olympics till I'm 40!”.) He told them he was going out for the cross-country team with the goal of not finishing last in any meet — and accomplished it. He told them he wanted to be in the math and English classes.

        His teammates look at his commitment, and question their own.

        Anthony Rose: “I've said to him, "Where do you get all this heart from — do you go home and think about this stuff when you go to bed?'”
       • • •

        Nick takes Depakote to control his seizure disorder: three big pills in the morning, three at night; 1,500 milligrams daily. One of the side effects is hand tremors, which have gotten worse over the years.

        His hands shake when he is writing. But they never shake when he is shooting.

        The ball always leaves his hand the same way. It is a habit honed on his side-drive asphalt court. In sunlight, in twilight, under the moonlight. Spring, summer, fall and winter, when he goes outside in the cold wearing only shorts and a T-shirt to keep his shot natural.

        The players still talk about that day in practice when Nick hit 10 straight shots in a shooting drill — corners, elbows, foul line and all his three-pointers.

        He has a recurring dream: St. Bernard is down by 2 points. Matt Westfall dribbles down court; throws it to Drew Statt, who passes to Jason Kalchek, who zips it to Nick, who hits a three from the corner (his favorite shot) to win it.

        “That's how I think — it's how everybody should think,” Nick says. “You just have to think you're in your driveway, playing your game. You have to think positive. That's one thing you have to do in basketball. If you don't think positive, there's nothing more I can say. You won't get there.”
       • • •

        When Nick was 13 months old, he awakened from a nap and his whole body was jerking. Laura thought he might have gotten pricked by a pin from his cloth diaper (“I was trying to be the perfect mom,” she says) and took him to the emergency room, where the diagnosis was ear-infection related high fever that brought on a seizure. The treatment was Tylenol to keep the fever down.

        But when Laura got him back home, more seizures occurred. His eyes would roll back into his head, his head would bob down. The doctors felt he was tired; needed a nap, was high energy. Eventually it got to the point he was having what seemed like a hundred seizures a day. He'd be walking, and for no reason would fall down.

        A neurologist told the Mosleys that Nick had a seizure disorder. Various medications were tried until the right prescription was found. The Mosleys were told “he'll grow out of it” by age 5. Now, it turns out, he will never grow out of it.

        Nick knows he'll never be able to drive. He isn't happy about it.
       • • •

        Although Laura had a “very rough” labor with 10-pound, 9-ounce Nick — after two hours of her pushing to no avail, Nick had to be taken by C-section and given oxygen — there weren't any early, easily detectable signs that he was developmentally handicapped.

        He walked at a year old; talked just after that. Like a house cat, he'd tight-rope along the top of the back of the couch, then leap off. With his tiny basketball in hand, he'd square-up to face the small hoop set against the wall and launch his shot. Swish. At preschool, the teacher told Laura not to be concerned that Nick wasn't learning his ABCs — “he's a boy; they tend to be a little slower than girls.” Letter recognition was a problem, but if a teacher pointed to a student's name, Nick would say the name perfectly.

        He has some amazing abilities. After hearing a song only once or twice, he can sing it word-for-word. He sings Michael Jackson songs so much (especially “Black or White,” “Bad” and “Thriller”) that his 12-year-old sister, Elizabeth — much to her chagrin — has wound up learning them, too. His showers are window-rattling karaoke sessions.

        Nick remembers numbers, but not names, of past University of Cincinnati basketball players. (“Dad, remember when No. 11 hit that three-pointer from the corner against Louisville?”)
       • • •

        Nick eats lunch at school from 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., then gets paid to work in the kitchen. Students slide their trays onto the counter in front of Nick; he piles up the trays to the side, then hoses them down. He's meticulous, focused, chats with a visitor as he works. Some of the students don't say anything. Some say “Hi, Nick,” others smile. Nick smiles back.

        “He has a lot of friends — especially the ladies,” says Ms. Stroeer.

        “Nick's a gentleman; you don't find many of them any more,” says fellow cheerleading co-captain Kacie Harrison. “He always says something that brightens up my day.”

        “Even after we lose, he'll say things like "We'll get 'em next time,' or "We played hard tonight, didn't we, Coach,'” says Mr. Vories, a winner at Newport and Campbell County. “I still don't like losing, but he's made me appreciate there's more to it than winning and losing. Besides, he always laughs at my jokes. We go back so far, he knows my sense of humor better than some of the guys.”

        Before Nick came along, Laura could not have seen herself standing in front of a church full of people to lobby on behalf of a school levy. Now, she's a member of the school board.

        Dave has become more thoughtful of others since a day 10 years ago when he was standing with Nick in line at a food court at Christmas, and the lady in front of them was trying to manage toddler-aged twins and an infant and a shopping cart and a food tray. Dave was oblivious to it all, until he heard Nick say to the woman, “Can I help you with that?” Nick took the tray, took her bags and walked the twins to a table.

        “It's a lesson I hope I never forget,” Dave says. “Here's an 8-year-old developmentally handicapped boy who saw somebody in obvious need, and I totally missed it.”

        Teammate Randy Fuson, a starter, sees how hard Nick practices and wonders, “If Nick can do that, why can't I?”

        Nick told his parents he didn't want to go to Scarlet Oaks Vocational School after high school. He wants to work in a hospital. He has shown great attention to detail the past three summers, holding down jobs at Paramount's Kings Island.

        “I feel working in a hospital would be good for me,” he says. “I want to be with people. I can make them feel better here (pointing to his heart) and up here (pointing to his head).”
       • • •

        St. Bernard point guard Matt Westfall bangs his knee hard and calls for relief. Coach Vories points to Nick. The crowd roars. It is Friday night. Homecoming. With 3:20 left, Nick comes off a screen set by Andrew Niesen, receives the feed from Noah Spears and nails a 10-footer from just above the left baseline, nothing but net.

        The gym erupts; Nick, gleeful, throws his fists to the sky, leaps even higher than he'd been on his jumper, slaps his palms against the floor, pogo-sticks down the court. The entire crowd is on its feet — yelling, clapping, hugging.

        Coach Vories laughs, claps, paces, shouts. The players high-five one another. The cheerleaders, who never cheered louder, brush away tears. Everybody is beside themselves with joy.

        “I can't believe this is all for Nick,” says Laura.

        At a timeout, Nick walks toward the bench, looks and points to heaven. Later, he basks in the hugs and handshakes of family, friends and many people he's never met.

        “I'll never forget this day for the rest of my life,” he says. “What date is it again, Mom?”

        The Titans host Milford Christian at 7:30 tonight: $5 for adults, $2 students/seniors, $12 per family. The school's on Tower Avenue, one light east of Mitchell and Vine.
       

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